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The Mean Mama

Despite being a card carrying member of the parenting club, parents are one of the groups who frustrate me the most.

It seems that for some, all common sense, decency and compassion go out the window once she pees on stick and gets a positive result.

The latest know it all in the parenting world is Alicia Silverstone with her recently released “The Kind Mama: A Simple Guide to Supercharged Fertility, a Radiant Pregnancy, a Sweeter Birth, and a Healthier, More Beautiful Beginning.”

I’ll admit to not having read the book, but the snippets I have seen leave me feeling horrified and sad that numerous trees have been pulped for this nonsense.

Alicia isn’t a health care professional, like us, she’s an individual with her own opinions, to which she is entitled, but as a woman in the media spotlight, in a position of influence to her ‘fans’, she has a responsibility to those ‘fans’.

Laying blame of post natal depression, infertility issues and poorly babies on a woman is an irresponsible, dangerous and a straight out nasty thing to do. These are all situations which are deeply personal and can be caused by any number of reasons, least of all lifestyle.

According to some of her more outlandish claims, I’d be a mean mama; I vaccinated my kids, didn’t eat the placenta, couldn’t breast feed, used nappies and failed to spit chewed up food in their mouths, oh and I’m not a vegan either. And obviously I bought my post natal depression on myself, silly me!

I’m sure she means well, but she comes across as a silly, un-educated know it all.

I agree with her that we could probably all benefit from some ‘cleaner’ living, parents do indeed need to ignore the pressure of baby milestones and we can definitely live with less ‘baby stuff’. But the rest of her ‘advice’ is ignorant at best and dangerous at worst.

Parents, both mums and dads, owe it to themselves and their children to do their own research, use the trial and error method and occasionally just ‘wing it’ when it comes to parenting.

You know your children best, what works and what doesn’t.

What we don’t need is another Hollywood starlet telling us what we are doing wrong.